Rwanda opens probe French officials' genocide role

This file photo taken on 7 April, 2000 shows workers from a team of 50 diggers, unearth remains from a mass grave in Nyamirambo near Kigali, Rwanda.
Marco Longari/AFP

Rwanda on Tuesday opened a formal probe into 20 French officials suspected of playing a role in the 1994 genocide, in a move likely to further sour diplomatic ties with France.

Kigali has long accused France of complicity in the genocide of some 800,000 mostly ethnic Tutsis, at the hands of Hutu extremists, angering Paris and straining relations.

"The inquiry, for now, is focused on 20 individuals whom, according to information gathered so far, are required by the prosecution authority to explain or provide clarity on allegations against them," said prosecutor general Richard Muhumuza in a statement.

French cooperation

This will enable prosecutors to decide "whether the concerned individuals should be formally charged or not".

Muhumuza said the relevant French authorities had been contacted and that full cooperation was expected.

The dispute centres on France's role prior to the genocide as a close ally of the Hutu nationalist regime of Juvenal Habyarimana.

The shooting down of his plane over Kigali on April 6, 1994 was the event that triggered 100 days of meticulously planned slaughter.

France is accused of missing or ignoring the warning signs, and of training the soldiers and militiamen who carried out the killings.

And when the genocide was in full swing, it was further accused of using its diplomatic clout to stall effective action.

When it did finally send in troops -- in Operation Turquoise -- it was accused of only doing so to counter the advance of the Tutsi rebels of Paul Kagame, who is now president, allowing the perpetrators to escape to neighbouring Zaire which later became the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Long-running spat

France says its soldiers were only deployed after most of the killing had happened and that their presence helped save thousands of lives.

And French officials insist that any guilt for failing to prevent the genocide is shared by the entire international community, accusing Kagame of raising the issue in a bid to distract attention from what they say is his own poor human rights record.